Liturgy Pacific is the on-line presence of Richard Geoffrey Leggett, Rector of Saint Faith's Anglican Church in Vancouver and Professor Emeritus of Liturgical Studies at Vancouver School of Theology. Here you will find sermons, comments on current Anglican and Lutheran affairs and reflections on the need for progressive orthodox Christians to re-claim our place on the theological stage.

In the first year of King Belshazzar
of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and visions of his head as he lay in bed. Then he wrote down the dream: I, Daniel, saw in my vision by night the four
winds of heaven stirring up the great sea, and four great beasts came up out of
the sea, different from one another.

As for me, Daniel, my spirit was
troubled within me, and the visions of my head terrified me. I approached one of the attendants to ask him
the truth concerning all this. So he
said that he would disclose to me the interpretation of the matter: “As for these four great beasts, four kings
shall arise out of the earth. But the
holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom
forever — forever and ever.”

Hear
what the Spirit is saying to the Church.

Thanks be to God.

The
Psalm

Psalm 149 with the Refrain from
Songs for the Holy One

Refrain (sung twice):Hallelujah!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

1Hallelujah!

Sing to the
Lord a new song; *

sing
the praises of God in the congregation of the faithful.

2Let
Israel rejoice in their maker; *

let the children of Zion be joyful
in their sovereign.

3Let them praise the name of the Lord in the
dance; *

let
them sing praise to God with timbrel and harp.

4For
the Lord takes pleasure in this people *

and adorns the poor with victory.

Refrain:Hallelujah!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

5Let the faithful rejoice in triumph; *

let
them be joyful on their beds.

6Let the praises of God be in their throat *

and a two-edged sword in their hand;

7to wreak vengeance on the nations *

and
punishment on the peoples;

8to bind their rulers in chains *

and
their nobles with links of iron;

9to inflict on them the judgement decreed; *

this is glory for all God’s faithful
people.

Hallelujah!

Refrain:Hallelujah!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

The
Second Reading

A
Reading from the Letter to the Ephesians (1.11-23).

In Christ we have also obtained an
inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who
accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, so that we, who were
the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you had heard the word
of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked
with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our
inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.

I have heard of your faith in the
Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not
cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come
to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know
what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his
glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness
of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. God put this power to work in Christ when he
raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly
places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above
every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and
has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the
fullness of him who fills all in all.

Hear
what the Spirit is saying to the Church.

Thanks be to God.

The
Gradual Hymn

‘Where
Charity and Love Prevail’ Common Praise #487

The
Gospel

The
Lord be with you.

And also with you.

The
holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke (Luke 6.20-31).

Glory to you, Lord Jesus
Christ.

Then [Jesus] looked up at his
disciples and said: “Blessed are you who
are poor,

for
yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are
you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.
Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.

“Blessed are you when people hate
you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the
Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap
for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their
ancestors did to the prophets.

“But woe to you who are rich, for
you have received your consolation. Woe
to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now,

for
you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when
all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false
prophets.

“But
I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,
bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the
other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your
shirt. Give to everyone who begs from
you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

Singing
has been a part of my life as long as I can remember. My mother at the age of 81 still has a
wonderful soprano voice. My father, who
died a month ago, did not have a great voice, but he always was surrounded by
music whether working at home or at his office.
As a boy growing up in a home filled with music and who had a reasonable
voice, I was enrolled in the parish choir as a treble and then, wonder of
wonders, when my voice changed, a tenor, one of the rarest commodities in the
vocal world of the church these days.

My
seminary, Nashotah House in Wisconsin, has had a reputation for music,
especially choral music. All seminarians
in my day had to participate in a music class during their first year. We learned how to chant the psalms and other
liturgical texts as well as sing new hymn texts that were emerging as the
Episcopal Church was moving to publish a new hymnal. What I did not know was that the music
director of the seminary used music class to scout out possible talent for his
double- and triple-quartet male ensembles.

One day
he ambled over to me during music class.
I have to admit I felt a bit uncomfortable by his invasion of my
personal space. He lingered next to me
for what seemed to be an eternity. The
next day, after morning chapel, he asked me if I would be willing to join the
double-quartet. I immediately said
‘yes’, but I would later regret this hasty decision.

At the
first rehearsal I was handed a thick score entitled ‘I was glad’. Before I could digest a single page, the
music director, who was also our organist, played the magnificent chords that
begin this majestic anthem. Quickly I
was thrown into the maelstrom of the music and, to my horror, noted the tenor
entrance and its immediate demand that I and my fellow tenors hit a rather high
note in our ranges. Things didn’t improve
as we continued to navigate the inter-weaving lines without a break. We, the daughters and sons of the American
War of Independence, weren’t quite sure what to do with some acclamations Parry
had included in what was originally a coronation anthem: ‘Vivat Regina! Vivat Regina Elizabetha!’ By the end of eight minutes, the rough length
of this piece, we were vocally, intellectually and physically shell-shocked. ‘Not too bad for a first reading,’ our
director said, ‘not ready for Westminster Abbey yet, but we will be.’ For a moment I thought that he was serious
about Westminster Abbey, but then realized he was joking.

I am
grateful to Father Michael for inviting me to be with you this morning as we
celebrate the anniversary of the dedication of this Parish. I am equally glad that the conditions of my
invitation did not include the requirement that I reprise my youthful encounter
with the choral demands of Parry’s setting of Psalm 122. But it is about this psalm that I want to
share some reflections with you on this occasion. If it please you, I’ll offer you an aging
tenor’s take on this psalm’s message to us as we journey through this second
decade of the twenty-first century.

Psalm
122 is what biblical scholars call a ‘psalm of ascent’. These psalms are songs that we believe
pilgrims to Jerusalem sang as they approached the city to celebrate the great
festivals of the Jewish liturgical year.
Even today, just outside modern Jerusalem, there is an overlook on the
highway where you can pull over and recite Psalm 122 as you see the city for
the first time.

Pilgrimages
are special journeys that include many common features such as moving from the
edges of our lives to the centre, from the ordinary to the sacred, from the
mundane to the meaningful, from the normal to the symbolic, from the present to
the past. [1] One writer describes a pilgrimage with these
words: “To return to a holy place on
pilgrimage is like homecoming or reunion time, a return to the roots, to the
source, to the ‘mother’ who still sustains and nourishes.” [2] For all the years of its existence Saint
John’s and all the parish churches throughout the world have had the potential
to be just such holy places where people can return week after week, year after
year, decade after decade, to a place where these pilgrims can rediscover the
roots of their faith and to be sustained and nourished in the on-going journey
of life beyond these places of memory and hope.

But what
are the roots of our faith that are to be found in these holy places? Today’s psalm offers us three: unity, judgement and peace. Certainly we who have endured the past ten
years of conflict and controversy, whether as members of Saint John’s or as
members of the other parishes of the Diocese, know how much we may desire
unity, how much we may fear judgement, how much we may long for peace. But what do these words mean for us today?

Too
often in our society the word ‘unity’ is confused with ‘uniformity’. Unity is a far more difficult task than its
shadow cousin uniformity. While
uniformity has its place, especially in those dimensions of our lives where
concrete uniform measures may mean the difference between life and death, unity
relies on a commitment of the heart, mind, soul and strength to maintain
relationships even when these are tested by diverse opinions on some of the
great questions of how we as Christians should live. If we believe Paul’s conviction expressed in
1 Corinthians 12.3 that no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ unless he or she is led
by the Spirit, then unity means holding fast to one another even as we struggle
to understand what it means to call Jesus ‘Lord’. Unity means that those who confess that the
Scriptures are the Word of God and contain all things necessary to salvation
are called to listen to one another as we seek to discern what is necessary to
salvation and what is not.

Too
often in our society ‘judgement’ is confused with ‘condemnation’. Judgement is the process of discernment by
which we seek to know which treasures from our past are best left in our congregational
closets and which treasures are life-sustaining in the present moment. Judgement may mean deciding that new
insights, new perspectives, new language may, if fact, be truer to the roots of
our faith than long-held ones. Judgement
helps us identify the difference between nostalgia for a long-lost mythic past
and the genuine tradition, the faith handed down to us from the first followers
of Jesus of Nazareth, a heritage that enlivens our faith and practice.

In all
our pilgrimages we seek ‘peace’ but not the peace that the world names
peace. In Welsh, one of the ancestral
languages of my family, there are two words that are sometimes translated into
English as ‘peace’. One means ‘the
absence of conflict’, the other ‘the presence of wholeness, well-being,
fulfillment’. The Hebrew word used
throughout today’s psalm is shalom whose root meaning is akin to the second
Welsh word. Jerusalem, the psalmist
sings, is to be a place of wholeness, well-being and fulfillment not merely a
place where conflict is absent. For
Christians this shalom is what we hope for in God’s coming reign when every
human being will be treated with dignity, when the integrity of creation is
restored and all creation rejoices in the fullness of life which is its
heritage from the very beginning of the universe.

My
friends, when we come to worship in one of these holy places, we come in search
of unity, judgement and peace. Every congregation
that dares to claim that it is a place of worship has the potential to be just
such a holy place where people discover that diversity is not a threat to
community but a potential strength just as a laminated beam is often stronger
than a single tree trunk. Every
religious community, especially those that claim a reverence for God’s word as
found in the Scriptures, has the potential to be a holy place where we learn to
pack our bags carefully for the journey of faith, to judge which of the many
gifts from our heritage are of use for us in the present moment. Every building that bears the sign of the
cross has the potential to be a sign that ‘the Lord is here’ in the midst of
neighbourhoods that are desperate to know wholeness, well-being and fulfillment
as they face the challenges of a consumer society.

On this
day we give thanks to God that Saint John’s has been a place of pilgrimage, in
times of quiet as well as in times of conflict.
We give thanks that this building stands as a symbol of God’s invitation
to all human beings to live in the shalom of God, not just in some distant future
but in this present moment as well. Just
as the psalmist expressed the hopes and joys of pilgrims making the ascent into
Jerusalem so many centuries ago, let me voice my hope that you and all the
pilgrims who come within these precincts might find joy and peace and be
empowered to go forth to be agents of God’s kingdom:

I pray
for your peace, my sisters and brothers.
May all who love you prosper. May
peace be within your walls and quietness within your halls. For the sake of all the people who seek the
roots of their faith, I pray for your prosperity. Because this is surely a holy place, a place
of pilgrimage for all who desire unity, for all who seek wise judgement and for
all who long for the peace of God’s reign, I and all your fellow pilgrims in
this Deanery and Diocese will seek to do you good. May our God, who knows the hearts of all,
fulfill these words in our generation. Amen.

About Me

Richard is a presbyter of the Anglican Diocese of New Westminster with a number of responsibilities. He is Rector of Saint Faith's Anglican Church in Vancouver. Richard is also the Principal Consultant for Liturgy Pacific, a worship consultancy providing educational seminars and resources for congregational life and ministry. After 23 years as a member of the faculty of Vancouver School of Theology, Dr Leggett became Professor Emeritus of Liturgical Studies in 2010. Since 1989 Dr Leggett has served on various national committees of the Anglican and Evangelical Lutheran churches in Canada and is a regular participant in the work of the International Anglican Liturgical Consultation. From 2010 to 2016 he was a Member of the Liturgy Task Force of the Anglican Church of Canada.